CDI Members Present: Carolyn Fornoff, E. Nicole Meyer, Jason Farr, Jennifer Nelson, Eduardo Ledesma, Rebecca Day Babcock

MLA Staff present: Terrence (Terry) Callaghan (Director of Administration and Finance; Staff liaison for CDI), Stacey Courtney (Assistant Director of Convention and Events, Staff liaison for CDI)

1. Quick reminder and overview of CDI sessions for MLA 2025 (2025 9–12 January, New Orleans, LA): 2 guaranteed sessions:

a) Jennifer Nelson: Deaf Performance and Language

Disability and Hiring: access, accommodation, belonging, and retention

b) E. Nicole Meyer Disability and Hiring: access, accommodation, belonging, and retention

Please confirm Title & 35-word CFP to Nicole by 2/26/2024 so that I may get it in by the deadline.

c). Non-guaranteed session proposed: Eduardo Ledesma. Inclusive Generative AI: Disability, Culture and Artificial Intelligence

How might disability narratives explore AI? How can AI empower Disability Arts and Culture? What challenges does AI pose for Disability Studies (ableism, lack of representation in models)? How could art and literature crip AI?

Feel free to reach out to Stacey with additional questions about how to write a successful proposal.

d) Collaborative session (guaranteed session for IT, however, they will welcome a focus on disability perspectives and submissions from us)

2. Access issues that arose at MLA (the proper provision of access copies, et al.). Address complaints: consider modifications to increase proper access at MLA sessions. Appoint sub-committee? Or work as a whole?

On acceptance of papers, CDI Session organizers should require that panelists agree to meet certain requirements ahead of time. We on CDI should model best access practices.

We ran out of hard access copies. Encourage Session organizers to use the Humanities Commons to upload access copies for their presenters. If the Session Organizer creates a page on the Humanities Commons, where all access copies are located; this URL can be embedded in the program. Some may have trouble with QR codes; so we should also provide paper copies. Some people have worries about their work being stolen, but when you post something on the MLA commons, it is in fact a published record, so it is protected. Belt and suspenders: printed and QR code copies.

For a large session, requesting a microphone for the audience would be helpful. The request must be made ahead of time, and with a rationale.

How to help MLA as a whole with the issue of encouraging access copies? Mass email to session organizers? But top-down messaging doesn’t seem to be effective, it gets lost amid sea of other info. We should consider also bringing it up as session members to inform our own chairs about the importance of access copies.

Potentially craft a specific message from the CDI to session organizers about the importance of access copies. For MLA Seattle there was a robust discussion on twitter about access copies; seemed to generate a healthy response.

All we can do is to continue the drumbeat of the importance of access copies; there will always be noncompliance. It makes a difference that MLA has this as a policy, because it officially endorses this as a best practice.

The structural conditions are there: MLA provides CART, interpretation, strongly suggests providing access copies. It is our individual responsibility to comply. It is the right thing to do.

Suggestion of putting it on the cover of the program. Printed program is finalized by August; by the time it comes out, it is out of date. People tend to use the online program.

Could we make it a requirement for session providers to ensure access copies? Worried about making conference participation more onerous on session organizers.

Success of fragrance-free campaign. How can we make a similarly succinct message about access copies?

3. Other issues?

Last cross-committee meeting at MLA Philadelphia, there was some confusion about how time was managed. Other committees hadn’t met yet, we already had; so other committees were chatting about their own agenda items and not mingling. Next year, it will be organized so that everyone is on the same timeline and playing field.

Action items:

• Jennifer and Eduardo will submit their CFPs; reach out to Nicole with questions or for help
• Continue to think about messaging on access copies

Thanks again to Stacey for her work to support our committee: We have two ASL interpreters (Lisa Bennett and Jennifer Ward) and one CART captionist (Kayla Peters)